Where We Went Through
….
What
could have been
anyone’s
undeterred easing
of breath; where
…..
was our own
wrong, the place
….
on your chest
the cat sought
for warmth, or to pose
as sentinel, the way
….
we turned
from known bronze fields
after the winery steward’s
generous pours of terroir
…..
intending home, instead
driving deeper
into the shadowed valley.
……
Even though, as she filled
each globe, she warned
how an unflawed vintage
could be spoiled by
a fruit fly’s signal
drowning, the ruin invisible
….
that winter would be so hard
we thought
it would hold long enough
for us to cross; instead
…..
we broke
at an ice star, unsuspected
fault taking you
beneath a cold skin where
you still could be seen, I could
not see you through.………….
……………..…..
This poem is from the chapbook Where We Went Through by Nancy Nowak (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/where-we-went-through-by-nancy-nowak/
Nancy Nowak’s chapbook Where We Went Through traces a journey through landscapes physical and emotional: Two people begin the journey, but after the loss of one, the other who remains enters sorrow alone. In poems rich with striking imagery and deeply felt language, the two experience ease and joy, exploring cities, countryside, and the edge of the sea. As the woman, on a bluff above the Great Salt Lake, watches her beloved walk within his labyrinth, the Spiral Jetty, she is moved by their brief separateness. Too soon, his sudden illness and death rend their bond. The place where she now lives burns with her grief. With time, she can look in a mirror at the “cobweb of lines” that remind her of times she smiled when they were together. She sees how she will “face staying on without you” his absence her companion, through all seasons left to her.
Nancy Nowak holds an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, New York. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Poetry Northwest, Comstock Review, Willows Wept Review, The Zeppelin Reader, and Windblown Sheets: Poems by Mothers and Daughters. Much of her published work can be found at nancynowakpoetry.com. She met her husband Jon Leach, an abstract artist, in New York City. In 1994, they moved to Southern Oregon, where as an Associate Professor of Humanities, she taught writing and poetry until she retired in 2016. Her beloved Jon died in 2020; she remains in their home on the South Umpqua River in Winston, Oregon.
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